Edge Coloring Technique to Remove Small Elementary Trapping Sets from Tanner Graph of QC-LDPC Codes with Column Weight 4

Abstract: One of the phenomena that causes high decoding failure rates is trapping sets. Characterization of $(a,b)$ elementary trapping sets (ETSs), their graphical properties and the lower bounds on their size in variable regular LDPC codes with column weights 3, 4, 5 and 6, where $a$ is the size of the ETS and $b$ is the number of degree-one check nodes, have been an interesting subject among researchers. Although progressive-edge-growth method (PEG) to construct LDPC codes free of an specific ETS has been proposed in the literature, it is mostly applied to LDPC codes with column weight 3. In this paper, we focus on constructing QC-LDPC codes with column weight 4 whose Tanner graphs are free of small ETSs. Using coloring the edges of the variable node (VN) graph corresponding to an ETS, we provide the sufficient conditions to obtain QC-LDPC codes with column weight 4, girth 6 and free of $(5,b)$ ETSs, where $b\leq4$, and $(6,b)$ ETs, where $b\leq2$. Moreover, for $(4,n)$-regular QC-LDPC codes with girth 8, we present a method to remove $(7,4)$ ETSs from Tanner graphs.